High-tech Can't Top A Good Tantrum

CHARLES BRICKER COMMENTARY

March 7, 2006|CHARLES BRICKER COMMENTARY

And so electronic line calling or instant replay or whatever you choose to call it comes to tennis, beginning March 22 at the Nasdaq-100 Open, and will no doubt spread to the Grand Slams and to other major tour events in due course.

If this technology had existed 28 years ago and been part of the game, would there have been a John McEnroe, as we know and love -- and hate -- him today?

Not even McEnroe could become infuriated enough at an electronic overrule to approach a little box and scream, "You cannot be serious." Because the little box can't react. It will just sit there, nonplussed, at the umpire's chair, and that was a big part of the fascination of watching Mac explode -- watching the chair umpire or linesperson cower before a tongue-lashing.

There are still a few whiners out there on the men's tour. Nicolas Kiefer is not a favorite of linespeople, and every once in a while Lleyton Hewitt's temperament, and Andy Roddick's, slip off to the dark side. But that's OK. You want a little friction with your tennis, don't you?

And we'll have enough of that at Nasdaq this year because this foray into replay is going to take place only on the stadium court, though we all know it will spread to all courts eventually, when there is 100 percent certainty that the system has been refined and everyone is convinced it's worth $130,000 per court.

Eventually the human element is going to be taken almost completely out of the calls, and I wonder if that's a good thing.

The late George Young, the crusty and brilliant general manager of the New York Giants, despised the NFL's instant replay. "It's not right to take the human element out of the game," Young used to lecture his colleagues.

Young would be happy to find out, as was brilliantly proven at Super Bowl XL, that even with replay they haven't taken the human element out of pro football.

Tennis, however, is different. There will be no referee peering at a TV monitor to judge whether a ball crossed the goal line.

The replay device at Nasdaq will make the decision, not the chair umpire, who needs merely to punch a button and report the machine's finding to the audience on the stadium court.

Players will get two challenges per set, plus a third if it goes to a tiebreak, but won't lose a challenge if replay finds in the player's favor. Once the challenges are used up, we're back to what we have before replay, and you might think that will allow some latter-day McEnroe to complain loudly about a call.

Except that players are going to judiciously hold onto that last challenge until late in the set, and it's going to be highly unlikely that there will be any loud arguments on court, which is too bad.

People talk a lot about how sportsmanship should always prevail over nasty temperament, but the fact is that most enjoy booing the player who angrily approaches the chair umpire to whine for two minutes about a call. It's part of the whole tennis experience, and we're going to lose that.

It's unfortunate that Goran Ivanisevic has retired from the ATP Tour. Now there was a man who talked to his rackets. I feel certain he'd happily talk to the little box as well. But he's gone back to Croatia to get on with his life and there aren't any really quirky men or women left out there to entertain us between points.

I'm ready for electronic line calling. I'm ready for anything that eliminates bad calls. But I wouldn't mind a good argument with the chair umpire, either.